NASA’s Dim View of Stars

This artist's concept shows the dimmest star-like bodies currently known
This artist's concept shows the dimmest star-like bodies currently known

“..astronomers can tell the temperature of the central regions of the Sun and of many other stars within a few percentage points and be quite sure about the figures they quote.” —A Star Called the Sun, George Gamow. The cone nebula shows a star at the top of a conical-shaped dusty plasma, festooned with lights.…


Assembling the Solar System

Cosmic Tornado HH49/50
Cosmic Tornado HH49/50

“The Genesis team can take great satisfaction not just in having salvaged their mission, but in underscoring once again how little we know about how our strange and wonderful home planet came to exist.” — Kelly Beatty, Sky & Telescope From the NASA website comes the following report: “Kevin McKeegan’s announcement at the 2008 Lunar…


The $6 billion LHC Circus

Miracle cartoon
Miracle cartoon

Science has become an international circus. And opening day for “The Greatest Show on Earth” has arrived. In the 27 km main circus ring we have the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) project, starting up after $6 billion dollars and thirty years of development. Before the show the clowns have warmed up the audience with fantastic…


Electric Gravity in an ELECTRIC UNIVERSE®

Newton's apple
Newton's apple

“..if a special geometry has to be invented in order to account for a falling apple, even Newton might be appalled at the complications which would ensue when really difficult problems are tackled.” — Sir Oliver Lodge, FRS, 1921. [1] [This news item is shortened and modified from a presentation given in Cambridge, England, in September…


Twinkle, twinkle electric star

Primary and secondary electric currents in the Sun.
Primary and secondary electric currents in the Sun.

Twinkle, twinkle electric star  Astronomers don’t know what you are! “Sit down before facts like a child, and be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing.” — T.H. Huxley An undergraduate textbook on the structure and evolution of stars makes a…


Electric Galaxies

Electric galaxy
Electric galaxy

“The conformist propensity of social institutions is not the only reason that erroneous theories persevere. However, once embedded within a culture, ideas exhibit an uncanny inertia, as if obeying Newton’s law to keep on going forever until acted upon by an external force.” —Henry Zemel. “One fact that strikes everyone is the spiral shape of…


Whatever happened to real science?

The Einstein Cross.
The Einstein Cross.

Just as much of modern science has become self-serving in striving for status and funding, the theory of how science should be done is similarly afflicted. An assessment of a theory based on ‘degrees of belief’ might be useful if scientists didn’t routinely ignore, minimize or dismiss falsifying evidence and twiddle the countless knobs on…


Enceladus, comets and electric moons

A montage of Enceladus and a comet to emphasize the unexpected similarity of the composition of their jets.
A montage of Enceladus and a comet to emphasize the unexpected similarity of the composition of their jets.

“William Whewell, in his 1840 synthesis The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, was the first to speak of consilience, literally a ‘jumping together’ of knowledge by the linking together of facts and fact-based theory across disciplines to create a common groundwork of explanation.” “When we have unified enough certain knowledge, we will understand who we…


Enceladus’ Cometary Plumes

Enceladus' blue jets.
Enceladus' blue jets.

Today the Cassini spacecraft is due to swoop over the south pole of Enceladus, one of the inner moons of Saturn, at a height of 50 km (30 miles), sampling its celebrated south polar plumes. The analyzers will “sniff and taste” the plume. Information on the density, size, composition and speed of the gas and…


More on Mercury’s Mysteries

Mercury in colour
Mercury in colour

“[Those] who have an excessive faith in their theories or in their ideas are not only poorly disposed to make discoveries, but they also make very poor observations.” —Claude Bernard (1813-78) French physiologist, 1865. MESSENGER flew 200 kilometres above Mercury’s surface on 14 January at a speed of 6 kilometres per second relative to the…